Not too long ago, we received a question from @RayBurton on Twitter about whether or not we’d done an article on emergency home heating in cold climates. Well, we haven’t, even though I’m from Canada and Thomas & I lived there together for 5 years – so the fact that we haven’t is a bit ridiculous.
To be fair, we have written a couple of winter emergency survival articles – one that details the supplies you should have on-hand to help you out in case the power goes out in the winter, and another that details our experiences when the power went out for 5 nights and 4 days in sub-zero weather in Toronto. Yet neither of these addresses the problem of heating head on, and so that’s what we’re going to talk about today.
Ray’s question is simple and to the point:
Ray’s Winter Preparedness Question
Have you done an article on emergency home heating in cold climates?
Our Response: Forget Home Heating and Think Small Instead
Skip over headers like I do? I’ll repeat that again: our advice for anyone living in a cold climate trying to heat a home when there’s a power outage is to forget home heating and think small instead.
Why on earth would we already start by advising you to forget home heating and aim your goals at thinking small instead?
Let’s get into it!
How to Heat an Entire Home When the Power’s Out
You don’t have many options here, and unless you’re: 1. Set up for these options already, or 2. Willing to drop a lot of cash to set yourself up for them – they’re just not going to work out for you. What are these options?
- Use a home heating system that completely depends on wood fireplaces.
- Use electrical power generators.
Expensive as hell to do if they’re not already options in your home. Actually, they’re expensive to take advantage of even if they are already options in your home (firewood/gas are not unlimited/free resources!).
With the first option, most will have a fireplace, but that usually will only heat up a single room: the one it’s in.
With the second option, again, most will never bother to have the kind of system installed where a generator heats your entire home.
This is fine though – better than fine actually. Because heating one room instead of an entire home is exactly what you should be doing in a winter emergency where the power goes out.
Why? Heating an entire home in an emergency instead concentrating your efforts on particular things that would be terribly expensive to lose power to – i.e. freezers, fridges, etc.. – well it’s just not wise.
Most would not bother using their generators to heat their entire home ever, and for two good reasons:
- This would be very expensive to do in the first place, and
- Depending on how long the emergency situation lasts (you never know!), you could potentially run out of fuel for the generator well before the emergency is even over.
So by just using the generator where you need it most (i.e. freezer & fridge, if there’s enough in there to warrant it) you’re saving a lot of money as well as giving yourself the best chance of your generator having enough fuel to last through the entirety of the emergency situation.
Alright, let’s take a look at your most realistic options for heating now.
How to Stay Warm Indoors When the Power’s Out (& It’s Freezing Outside)
That Thing You Pretty Much Have To Do
Yup, sorry. You knew it would come to this:
1. Camp out in one room in the house. Preferably a small one (as it will be easier to keep warm).
If everybody’s in one room with the door closed and that room has got as many blankets, jackets, coats, pets, and whatever else you have at home to keep y’all as warm as possible, you’re going to have a lot easier of a time trying to stay warm by comparison to trying to heat multiple rooms.
When it comes to sleeping, you don’t need to share a bed if you don’t want to, but if it’s not something you mind, why not? If you’re not into sharing a bed, drag extra mattresses or sofa cushions into your room of choice and have everyone sleep separately, but by being in the same room, you’re making sure none of your individual bodies’ heat production is going to waste – it’s helping to keep the room warm.
No Electricity/Fuel/Fire Options
These techniques will keep your core temperature up, but won’t waste your money, your fuel, or your energy to keep them going. Use as many of them as you’d like, as they all play nice together.
2. Stay in a tent.
We all know that being in a tent in cold weather outdoors does wonders for being able to stay warm.
Set up camp inside a literal tent in your bedroom or “warm room” of choice. Sit and sleep in there with whomever is perfectly happy being in the tent with you. Wise to get a big tent that’s large enough to fit everyone in your family, with wiggle room to spare (blankets take up a lot of space!).
Obvious to say the least, but you’ll all be much toastier inside the tent than outside it. And, let’s be real, this’ll help you all sleep better.
3. Stay in a sub-zero sleeping bag.
Sub zero temperature sleeping bags are a must-have when you’re thinking about outdoor survival for cold weather climates, and again, if the weather’s bad out and there’s no power, you should be using these tools to keep you warm inside. You don’t have to sit in a tent the whole day, but if you just want to warm up, and definitely when you’re ready for bed, it’s an excellent tool to make use of.
4. Line your tent with mylar thermal blankets.
We’ve all seen how bushcrafters will often line their shelters with mylar thermal blankets to stay warm outdoors, and when it’s all they’ve got, how just this simple tool is often enough to keep them toasty through some very cold nights.
Still not enough heat in your tent because it’s super cold in your neck of the woods? Chances are lining your tent in these will really help you stay toasty.
5. Throw your blankets and/or sleeping bag into a thermal blanket and stay in that.
You know they actually make survival blankets in the shape of sleeping bags? Super handy if you’ve not got a great sleeping bag, or of course if it’s still freezing inside your tent.
6. Cover yourself in emergency mylar thermal blankets.
Yes, I haven’t finished with these yet. They seriously keep you so toasty and this step is probably overkill at this point, but if you haven’t got one of the thermal survival blankets I mentioned in the previous suggestion, but want the same effect, or if you prefer to just be plain cooked when you’re sleeping, throw a mylar blanket or two right on top of what you’ve got (a sleeping bag, blankets, thermal blankets, etc.).
Basically, if you’re trying to stay warm in a freezing winter with no power to your home, and you’re doing it on a budget, or with no electricity/fuel/power options whatsoever: treat your indoors like it’s winter survival outdoors. Add layer after layer of thermoregulation-oriented survival gear until you and your family are toasty.
Electricity/Fuel/Fire Options
Sometimes, you won’t feel like turning a room of your home into a hot mess of blankets, sleeping bags, mylar blankets, and tents. Sometimes you’re lucky enough to be able to take advantage of more modern and less budget options. What to do in these cases?
7. Keep a fireplace fire going in your one room and have everybody in the family stay there.
Easy as pie. Doubt you will need a tent if you’ve got this, though I’d still keep the sub-zero sleeping bags and blankets galore in the room in case someone’s not happy enough with just the fire.
If you’ve got a fireplace in a non-open concept room as well as enough firewood to last you ages, no reason you shouldn’t use this method.
Stay safe, and make sure you’ve got your fireplace properly ventilated, that there’s nothing flammable near it, and if you’re going to bed, put it out or make sure to have shifts where at least one or two people are up to watch it. But hell, a good ‘ol fireplace can really keep you cozy with minimal effort.
8. No fireplace? Turn on an indoor-use gas heater for a few hours here and there when you’re watching.
Thomas and I were flat out of luck with no fireplace in our home when the electricity went out that one winter in Toronto. I’m terrible with the cold, so I couldn’t stand our bedroom with just the two of us and our cat in it at night. And yes, we were silly enough not to have prepped enough to have the kind of gear stockpiled that it would take to go the no electricity/fuel/fire options way.
What we did have was a propane/butane heater (like this one), and if I’m honest, not a lot of fuel for it. So we rationed out a few hours of warmth before bedtime, being very careful to ventilate our home by opening a window when it was on and watching it like a hawk simultaneously. About a half hour before bed, we’d shut it off, confirm it was off repeatedly, then sleep.
Not the best option, and definitely not what I’d do now, but if it’s all you’ve got, you make do with what you have. Banging my head on a wall these days for being a prepper who was not prepared for that kind of a situation, but you know – live and learn. And we’ve definitely learned.
The Most Ideal Preventative Option
In an ideal situation, given we had the money, what would we have done? The absolute best method I’ve found:
9. Build a brick room-sized shed/garage separate from the house and put a fireplace there along with a gas cooker.
You know how comfortable you’ll be there? Our neighbours back in Toronto have this kind of a setup and so when the power went out, Thomas and I quite literally spent every morning and afternoon with them, enjoying our time sitting around the fire chatting away, before sadly hopping off to our cold home for nighttime.
Make sure you build this place large enough that you’ll be able to throw everyone in the family comfortably in at night, and you’ll literally be happy as clams throughout the outage. Obviously, again, make sure to practice fire safety (nothing flammable near the fire, good ventilation at all times, and make sure someone’s up whenever the fire’s going), but pretty much, with as much wood as you can get stockpiled, you’ll be cozy no matter how long the power outage lasts. You’re set as long as you’ve got firewood for the fireplace and enough gas for your cooker.
Living the high life during a winter emergency this is.
Enough suggestions? I think you get the picture. You can definitely stay warm and cozy indoors in sub-zero winter climates when the power goes out. Yes, you and your family members may be driven mad having to spend so much time in a single room together, you may be absolutely covered from head to toe in coats and blankets and mylar tarps, but you said you wanted to stay warm, didn’t you?
More Winter Preparedness Resources
If you live in a cold climate and are working on buffing up your winter preparedness, take a look at our winter emergency supply list to make sure there’s nothing on it you’re currently missing that you may want.
Besides the items on that list, which primarily concentrate on warmth and indoor cooking ability, there isn’t much difference between winter preparedness and any other type of preparedness. So if you’re interested, also take a look at the comprehensive list of survival gear we put together to compare your kits and at-home resources to.
Your Suggestions for Staying Warm in Cold Winters?
As usual, if you’ve got any tips and tricks I’ve missed mentioning here, let me know in the comments! Would also love to hear about any experiences you’ve had with cold weather during power outages if you have any stories for me!
If you have a survival, preparedness, or gear related question you’d like us to answer, don’t hesitate to let us know! Find out how to reach us via the contact page. Although we don’t publish every question we’re asked on the blog, we try our best to respond to each and every one we receive.
In case you’re interested, you can also view our past responses to reader questions here.
Staying warm is important and thank you for sharing.
One question though:
Any thoughts on how to keep the pipes from freezing while we’re huddled in our warm spot?
Thank you :-)
Honestly, I went through this and our pipes were fine in a Canadian winter. I suspect running the water would stop it from freezing but we didn’t do that & didn’t face any issues.
Slept in the back of a Vauxhall Viva Estate for a fortnight in January 1985 just outside Wakefield (UK) in a field on top of a hill. Every teatime when the lessons had finished at the skillcentre I would fill a two gallon container with hot water from the canteen and go back to the hill to cook tea. I tried sleeping at the truckstop but they wanted to charge me and I was short of money so I went back up the hill to my field. The Police tapped on my car window twice as they thought someone had committed suicide but when I told them I was on a course in Wakefield and lived in Hull they left me alone. The hot water wrapped up with me in a big duvet kept me warm all through the night even with snow on the ground and thick frost on the windows. PS the car engine was overheating after about ten miles that’s why I camped out.
Interesting, I am surprised the cops were so chill about you sleeping in your car- I would have expected more protests from them. Good call on the glorified hot water bottles- definitely made it bearable for you!
I have two catalytic heaters specifically designed to be used indoors with propane as a fuel. (No CO generated) They work great. You can use 1# or 20# propane tanks (with adapter). I have about 30 1# bottles and an adapter that lets me fill them from a 20# tanks too.
How durable are those things?
I would like to add that if using the tent option indoors you can (and should) place a tarp and then possibly a blanket or large pad under the tent. This way the cooler ground surface does not penetrate the ground as easily. Lots of people may head to the basement (for various reasons) to utilize their ‘camp out room’ so the floor can be pretty cold! (we would as our gas stove is in the basement)
You mentioned keeping your clothes inside your sleeping bag. I recommend keeping them near your feet because that’s where a lot of bags get cold (I hate cold feet). Totally helped me out in Korea in 5 degree weather! Also, wore a fleece cap.
Another thing that helps is to have hand warmers in your bag. I usually take two and place them in my armpits to keep my core temp up while I’m in my sleeping bag in freezing weather.
Great tip! I hate hot feet (I’m a weirdo, I know!) but that’s a good point, to move the clothes to where you prefer to be the warmest. Fleece cap = so useful! I can’t imagine how many headaches that must’ve prevented.
The hand warmers under armpits = pretty genius! Thank you so much for the tips!
Gel fuel cans in iron skillets or pots, or clay pots. Gel fuel is relatively inexpensive by the case. Also, these can be used in a fireplace if no wood. Some of the gel fuel cans last up to 16 hours.
Nicely written. I just went through the “no heat in the middle of February” thing when our furnace died and it took 4 days to get a new install done. What we did was use our gas fireplace to heat the living room where we stayed. We used several strategically placed fans to push the warm air around and I had 2 solar air heaters I previously made in windows upstairs so it wasn’t a big deal. I just received the gas bill for February and it was only around 6% higher than normal.
One thing that I’m always thinking about is “Plan B” for situations like no heat. That’s what country living will do to you.
Something you could think about is making a solar air heater for each window that opens and faces south (if you are lucky to have a south exposure). If it gets at all sunny the solar air heater will help heat the room it’s in.
I have 2 that I use in my garage/workshop when I’m out there in the winter working. I’m cheep and retired and I like that these 2 heaters will throw out a lot of heat while I’m working. The only costs involved are the materials and time to assemble the units. Once the initial cost of time and materials is out of the way they can be totally free to use.I say free because the ones I made are not electric, they run from solar heat.
This should give you an idea about how they work.
http://www.treehugger.com/solar-technology/how-build-diy-solar-air-heater-old-soda-cans.html
Thanks for the advice! Need to look into this. Very good idea!
Awesome tips!
What most people don’t realize is that the individual human body emits about 100Wats of heating energy. So if there are 5 of you in a room that means that you have a small heating device of 500Wats, with proper insulation setup such as blankets you can stay very warm.
One thing I would like to add is using Hay in the room you are staying in. Place hay everywhere, you just have to have Hay in your preparedness list! The floor should be covered with an at least 2inch layer of hay, preferably thicker. This will reduce the amount of heat that will go through the floor and into the earth.
Oh that’s a great suggestion! Obviously I wouldn’t think of it considering I’m a city-rat, but hay is genius to be using as insulation!
Definitely agree about the whole body heat thing, too. People don’t often realize just how much heat we produce.
After reading your artical & comments 3 times. I feel truey blessed. I live at aprox. 9200 feet above sea leval. In the Colorado Rockies. In a small ( 16’x26′) 100 + year old log cabin. I heat my home year round with a wood burning stove. And can stay comfortable at -40 degrees . At least 8 months of the year I do 95% of my cooking on the wood stove. I keep 2 oil lamps w/fuel on hand for light and half dozen cases of bottled water. ( well pump needs elec.) if frige or freezer start to thaw I just open door on the freezer. ( it’s on the back porch.). And put everything in the frige in an ice chest an put it on the porch also. ( the ice chest helps to keep from freezen ) power outages are a minor inconvens for me.
Thank you so much for your web site and the e-mails you send me. I always look forward to them !
That’s a pretty incredible way to live :). Love the sound of your pad – and yes, certainly are blessed ;)
Glad you like our blog! Looking forward to seeing your comments again!
Oil lamps and Clay Pot heaters will throw some heat into a one room closed off from the rest of the house.You just have to be most careful not to knock the oil lamps over or the clay pots.Just an aside with the Clay Pot Heaters.Ive seen on youtube where people only use 3 Tea candles im sorry but thats not going to get the heat you need to stay warm in a grid down scenario.I put up to 15 Tea candles and if you live where it get below freezing i suggest you buy two pots and run them side by side.Stock up now on tea candles i find Walmart has them the cheapest about 3.00 for 100 tea candles,
Good point! And yes, safety is always something we have to highlight, but if you’re careful, and especially if you do this in a garage with a concrete floor, super viable.
It’s hard to think about the cold from an Australian summer, (it’s about 97 degrees today), but this is a great article. I’d never thought of putting a tent up inside to keep warm!
Haha. Well I can’t nail everybody’s winter all in one go. Maybe I should’ve put this up in the fall! Sometime in between the different winters.
Two missing factors: Make your fire place/stove get its combustion air from OUTSIDE. No drafty chill for the fire to get air. :-) If you are in ONE room and the rest of the house will get very cold, shut off the water and drain the pipes. Most basements stay somewhat warmer than above ground rooms. You could keep a basement tap supplied with water to meet your needs.
Thats a great point about draining the pipes to prevent bursting.
Thanks for this. Yes and yes of course!
I found that putting plastic bottles filled with hot water under the blankets before bed works wonderfully. Those large tough plastic juice bottles are ideal. How do you heat the water? For our emergency, the furnace went out but we still had hot water. So that was easy. But in a situation where you didn’t have access to hot water on tap, then heat it up on the stove (gas) or a fire could be built in the grill outside. You can also heat bricks and wrap them in towels which can placed in the bed too. I found that the hot water bottles stayed warm well thru the night and into the next day.
Yes same happened in our winter emergency, we still had hot water, but I didn’t use the hot water for anything. Really should’ve filled a hot water bottle (we even had one in the house!) and done what you recommended by putting it in bed with us, honestly. Neighbours pointed out we might have hot water, so it’s not like we weren’t aware it was working, though they recommended taking a hot bath with it (and I was not doing that!).. just a bit silly of me not to think about pulling out the hot water bottle until after the emergency.
Great advice though. Obviously, I forgot about the hot water again since the thought didn’t make it into the advice for this article!
I’ve been in this situation before, ran out of gas on firday afternoon. Couldn’t get more till Monday. We went the one room route. Great family time lol.
I can’t say enough about down. We use down comforters on our beds in the winter and they are great. Down is amazing and it could really save your life.
Yeah down is amazing, it’s true. Down jackets, down blankets. So helpful in situations like these.
I spent 5 days in a large farmhouse in SoIL back in the mid-90’s during a blizzard that hit the area and shut down EVERYTHING! I lived out on a small township road with all my vehicles drifted in and a 300 yd. driveway completely drifted over. It was easily the worst snowstorm to hit SoIL in the 30 years I spent there. I had a small “guest” room which was added onto the main farmhouse via a porch/enclosed walkway to the separate room and I moved the dog and what I felt I needed into the room and hunkered down to wait things out. My lab and I were well into winter camping and I had enough winter equipment to cover most anything I encountered in that area of the country but that storm really tested my mettle as a winter survivor.
Some tips I learned, in addition to utilising my tent as a further indoor shelter/heat isolator, I also made use of some large, …. no, make that VERY large black leaf bags I bought at the local farm co-op, My sleeping bag was OK for occasional winter camping but it wasn’t rated for a very cold constant temp so I made a plastic “capsule” to fit myself into before sliding into my sleeping bag. One plastic bag had a hole cut into the center of the bottom large enough to stick my head through, also 2 arm holes, one in each side near the bottom, this was my “upper”. My “lower” was simply another bag with no holes which I slid my legs into right before I slid myself into the sleeping bag for the night. I never used a thermal or mylar blanket but I would imagine that the black bag combo did a similar job of retaining the heat for me. My only worry was waking up in damp clothing from normal expiration of breath and sweating but it was not an issue for me.
One other thing I found about my leaf bag “cocoon” was, if I sat against the closet wall, the only interior wall in this guest room, and pulled my upper bag over my head and scrunched my folded legs inside the same bag, I could CAREFULLY light a Bic lighter inside that bag as low to the floor as possible and generate a small amount of heat that lasted for probably 5 minutes. I had to do this after going outside in the sub-freezing wind on the 2nd day of my “camp-in” to see if I could get one of my vehicles started. I figured that, if I could start one of the trucks or my big car, I could sneak through a shallow spot in the snow behind the drifts around the house and drive down the windblown field to the end of my driveway, then shovel enough to get out onto the township road and go for some help or stay with a friend until things got sorted out. Anyway, I came in shivering and cold and knew that I would be into hyperthermia if I wasn’t careful so I sat in my black bag, flicking my Bic for a few seconds until I felt the heat spread around the interior of the bag and within a half hour or so, I finally came back to normal core temp and was able to get moving around with my normal winter clothes. Hypothermia was a real frightening concern for me during winter camping or in this case where I had no means to get out with any of my vehicles to find some relief.
Cooking was a snap, I had my trusty Coleman 3 burner stove that I bought at a yard sale for 4 bucks and 2 gallons of stove fuel plus a small Svea camping stove when I needed a quick cup of hot water for tea which, if you don’t know what a Svea is, it wouldn’t do any good to try to explain it. Try Google or some other search engine, I really don’t know if you can buy Svea’s any longer. All heat generating procedures were done within the confines of my little guest grotto and it helped to maintain a temp near or above freezing for most of the time I spent in there while the outside temps were low and sub-teens. It’s amazing how much heat a dog and one man can generate just in body heat when there is adequate insulation and minimum windows and doors in a small room.
If I had any hints to give out they would include:
1. Keep your head about the reality of the situation, don’t go “off the deep end” and enter full panic mode or, at the other end of the spectrum, take anything for granted in such a situation as a power blackout no matter how short you may think it will be.
2. Use common sense to solve problems for which you have no “easy” remedy. Remember our forefathers had to do this on a daily basis or they would not have survived frontier living.
3. Watch your pets. They can be perfect indicators of something “bad” coming, they will sense danger or weather changes long before they become evident to you. We had warning of this storm coming but my lab knew when it was going to hit before I did. He got nervous and “nosed” my hand for attention and tried to tell me “This is it, dad, that storm’s gonna hit us now!!”
I wish you good luck and happy survival no matter what the circumstances may involve, there is always a solution to any problem if you know how to approach the issue. I have not yet seen an “owner’s manual” to any problem I have encountered in my life and I am still alive and able after almost 74 years of being a “student” of the life of which I have enjoyed thoroughly. There were times when I may have, could have, and would have probably died had I not taken time to stay calm and take stock of the situation at hand. I believe that many people die of Panic in a given disaster rather than find a way to survive and go on.
Addendum: I used the wrong term, I meant “hypothermia” above in my description. I used it wrong first and then correctly after that, shows how well I proofread my writing.
Also, don’t underestimate CANDLES. I used every candle I had in the house, probably 30 or more counting all I had sitting in each room for short power outages from thunder storms, spares in the pantry, and candles I had in my Duluth pack which I used for camping in normal weather. They will suck up the O2 but my dog had to go outside every few hours and I got enough air exchange to make things fairly safe. The only window in the room was on the North side and that was the side of the oncoming storm so I did crack the door to the walkway to let in some fresh air.
What an experience! And great advice of course. Only goes to show you that under duress you get some great ideas if, like you said, you don’t panic and you just let them happen naturally. Seriously interesting. Thanks so much for sharing your experience!
A basement or other room below ground level can be kept warmer, especially in weather where much of the cooling is caused by wind. If there is no basement an interior room or hallway can often be easier to heat even without wind being a problem.
Good point. Didn’t think of this at all, but makes perfect sense.
first off, wood stoves are more than capable of heating an entire house. i use mine to heat my house using thermal dynamics. my stove is a large one designed for heating large spaces. my first floor rooms all stay 70-75, the shut off rooms are usually in the lower 60s. the space furthest from my stove, stays in the upper 60s. meanwhile the basement with the stove is easily 80-85 degrees. a good thing remeber is that you can always wear more clothes, if your power goes out in the winter put long clothes. there is no need to heat any room to the point you need short clothes. when sleeping in sleeping bags, its helps to have as little clothes on as possible. plus when you first get into one thrash around for a minute or so, itll warm the bag up. plus sleep with your clothes, more warmth plus warm clothes when you wake up. wool, fleece, and flannel are some of the best materials for clothes, wool being able to warm you while wet. a note about sleeping bags, they are already extremely warm to begin with, i was camping once and was hit with a freak snow storm, out of the group i was the only one used to cold. so i was chosen as the wind breaker. all we had was a tarp to cover us, so i slept on the side that facing the wind. so i flipped the bag so the face hole was down and went to sleep. during the night the snow and wind blew the tarp off me. so it was just my bag between me and winter. i woke up with a layer of ice and at least 4-5 inches of snow on my back. in real dire needs group up with thin clothes under a nest of bags and blankets, itll stay nice and warm. in a pinch stuff like plastic bags can be used to insulate yourself in a sleeping bag.
That’s pretty remarkable! Did you get this installed after you moved in or was it like that when you bought the house – because if you put it in I would love to learn about how you did it if you have more information.
The rest is obviously excellent advice. Thank you for sharing!
Great article. These are easily implemented tips.
I like the option of an arctic sleeping bag. You should have one anyway, so it’s there if you need it in the house as well. Having an alternative “cave” with a wood stove separate from the house is a great idea. Never thought of that. Its an easier build than ripping apart your house to install a wood stove if not all members of the family are down with your survival preps :-)
Mylar blankets – never tried them. Adding to the list :-)
Thanks for sharing the tips in response to my tweet. It’s very cool that you are that interactive with your readers and followers. It’s something that is missing out there in the blog sphere.
Yeah a nice warm mancave with a fireplace is all ya really need ;) Definitely easier than installing in a house.
No problem! Always happy to answer interesting questions like this one.
Drink something hot before bedtime to warm up your core and eat a high calorie snack.
This helps so much, it’s true.
Take a look at the slanket. A blanket with sleeves. There are three competitors in the market place. A blanket with arm holes allows a person to still function indoors.
Sounds like a good product to have for this kind of a situation.